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| Unpopular National Conference down and out! | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Aug 16: National Conference (NC), premier political organization of Kashmir, is, it appears, not just down. It is also out. No one had ever expected that the NC, which was founded by Sheikh Abdullah in 1938 and which played a significant in the political and religious history of Kashmir, would become so unpopular that the likes of suspended Head Constable Abdul Ahad Jan would hurl shoe at Chief Minister and former NC president Omar Abdullah and that, too, during the independence day function at the Srinagar's heavily-guarded Bakshi Stadium.
That Jan managed a seat in the Central pavilion and was successful in hurling a shoe at the Chief Minister speaks for itself. It indicates two things. One, there are elements in the police and elsewhere who provided Jan all the logistic support so that he could conduct his operation and vitiate the whole atmosphere for ulterior purposes. Two, though Jan failed to hit his target, yet the incident indicated the extent to which the Chief Minister and his party have become unpopular in Kashmir, leave aside Jammu where the bulk of its society has no regard whatever for the Chief Minister and his party. He and his party became almost untouchable in Jammu after July 22, 2008, when Omar Abdullah declared in the Parliament that "he will not give an inch of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine board because the land belongs to Kashmiris" and that "we have been fighting for our land and we will continue to do."
The causes responsible for the decline of the NC are many. The most important one is that the Abdullah dynasty has consistently compromised its ideology in order to fulfill its lust for power and pelf. The Abdullah always said one thing in public and did exactly the opposite in order to obtain power and retain control over it. For example, in 1975, the Sheikh hobnobbed with the Congress and dissolved his Plebiscite Front in order to become Chief Minister. Jawaharlal Nehru had not only dismissed the Sheikh from the office of Wazir-e-Azam but had also got him arrested. The Sheikh remained in jail for 22 long years. Dr Farooq Abdullah's conduct was no different. He was dismissed by the Congress government at the Centre in 1984 on the ground that he had become a threat to national security, but he sprang a big surprise on the people of Kashmir by entering into accord with the Congress in 1986 to grab political power.
Both Sheikh Abdullah and Dr Farooq Abdullah consistently told the Kashmiri Muslims that they were for greater autonomy or limited accession with India and that they will see to it that all the Central laws were withdrawn from the state, but they did exactly the opposite. In effect, they consistently aroused popular feelings in Kashmir by expressing themselves against the Central laws and institutions and by identifying themselves with the Muslim identity politics, but allowed New Delhi to extend 13 more Central laws to the state between 1975 and January 1990. So much so, Dr Farooq Abdullah became the first Chief Minister in the country to adopt POTA and enforce it very strictly.
The power-hungry Abdullah dynasty not only flirted at regular intervals with the same Congress party that had taken on both the Sheikh and Dr Farooq Abdullah and dismissed them for the sake of personal power and profit, but it also entered into an alliance with the BJP, despite the fact that the NC had consistently dubbed this party as a communal and anti-Kashmir and anti-Muslim formation. Its anger with the BJP and its earlier incarnations - Praja Parishad and Jana Sangh - was that it was a critic of Article 370 under which the state enjoys a special status within the Indian Union. The members of the Abdullah dynasty took a complete U-turn in 1998, when they decided to share power with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Omar Abdullah became Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. The NC dumbfounded its communal constituency in Kashmir all the more when it decided to not to quit the ministry, notwithstanding the fact that the BJP government had rejected the autonomy report outright and thrown the same in the dustbin, of course, for right reasons.
The kind of politics the Abdullahs took recourse to have had its adverse impact on its communal constituency in the Valley. It became clear in 2002, when the NC, which in 1996 had won two-third seats in the assembly elections, could capture only 28 seats out of a total of 87 assembly seats - just one-third. The NC remained in opposition. It was expected that it would perform well in the 2008 assembly elections because it was out of power. It did not happen. It again won 28 seats. In the Kashmir Valley, the People's Democratic Party polled more votes as compared to the NC. The NC virtually became a party with its support-base confined to Srinagar district and a few more urban areas in the Valley.
Not content with all this, the Abdullahs once again changed sides. Now they again hobnobbed with the Congress party. The objective was the same - capture state power by all means. During the 2008 election campaign, the Abdullahs poured venom on the Congress and its policy towards Kashmir, but after the election results were cover, the Abdullahs flirted with the Congress and grabbed the position of Chief Minister. Angry Omar Abdullah, who was a greenhorn in politics and who was inexperienced, became Chief Minister. His elevation to the office of Chief Minister was politically and morally incorrect. Why because the NC had contested elections under the leadership of Dr Farooq Abdullah. Farooq Abdullah had repeatedly told his audiences during the election campaign that he will take over as Chief Minister in case his party won the assembly elections. Since Dr Farooq Abdullah also wanted to enjoy political power, he also manipulated his induction in the Congress-led UPA Government.
So, it was this politics of personal power and profit, politics of compromises that has made the Chief Minister and his party thoroughly unpopular. The Kashmiri Muslims are just not prepared to trust the Abdullahs, who have been reiterating day in and day out that they are committed to restoring the pre-1953 politico-constitutional position; they are committed to diluting the Armed Forces Special Powers Act; they are committed to making the Union Government reduce the presence of the Army and paramilitary forces in the Kashmir Valley; and they are committed to coming up to the separatist expectations of the communal constituency in Kashmir. If elections are held today in Kashmir, the NC will not win a single seat. This is the position.
Other factors which have contributed to the unpopularity of the Chief Minister and his outfit include rampant corruption, inaccessibility, arrogance, non-performance, mal-administration and lack of contact between the ruler and the ruled. The fact is that the Chief Minister and his government have failed to deliver on any front. The Chief Minister knows it. That was the reason he had reportedly decided to quit. He couldn't do so because the senior Abdullah persuaded him not to quit. This scribe had written three days ago that the Chief Minister a contemplating a major move to salvage his position and the report to the effect that he had made up his mind to quit came only on August 15.
The moral of the story, in short, is that the Chief Minister and his government are drifting towards a rock and that the National Conference has almost become untouchable in Kashmir. It is very difficult to say if the Abdullahs would now ever be in a position to retrieve the lost ground. What about the Congress? The Congress is also losing its support-base by allying itself with the NC. It cannot escape the responsibility for whatever is happening in Kashmir. It is in the government; it has also to pay a very heavy price. However, it is the Indian nation that has suffered the most in the process. Both these parties have not only created problems for themselves, they have created very serious problems for the nation as well by indulging in and supporting politics - NC style. |
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